Journey: Connect, Consider, Converse, Curate, #ETMOOC

1 #ETMOOC : What are we to do? First, connect with others and consider their ideas.

Connect & Consider

I started the #ETMOOC not knowing anything, except that I could connect with a massive number of amazing people. I floundered awhile and connected with Ben Wilkoff; I considered his vlog ideas about making meaning from the bits by stringing them together. We participants will have a massive amount of information to peruse.

2 Next, converse with the authors of those ideas — understand them.

Converse

I responded to his vlog through a vialogue conversation which I embedded into my post “Coalesced Connections” and asked for further conversations on this idea with others. Ben replied on the vialogue and then another vlog. Our conversations resulted in new learning for both of us: he learned about vialgues and #geniushour (See Denise Kreb’s post), and I learned to consider my own questions and to find ways to curate the information I chose to follow in our #ETMOOC. Ben introduced me to Storify, Pearltrees, and IFTTT as ways to annotate and organize those bits of information I want to synthesize and share in meaning and action.

3 Then, curate the sources and the meaning so as Ben, in his vlog, “Mutually Beneficial Friction: How We Stop Skimming The Surface Of Ideas” says, we “string together enough of those concepts and putting them together within a context that makes sense to you and me and is useful to my learning or my learners’ learning…I want to take these twelve things that people are talking about and pull together them together into something that makes sense… Remix… Creation.”

Curate

The first thing I did after my conversation with Ben was to think through the questions I may want to pursue as well as organize my understanding of what #ETMOOC means. I also organized the #ETMOOC information, our conversations, and other information in my first Storify.

My Questions:

Given the access, technology, resources, and requirements available to me, how can I create a classroom world reflective of what my students need in the future that is theirs?

How do I need to adapt my pedagogy to create that classroom?

How will like-minded teachers connect and collaborate to create connected spaces for themselves and with their students?

What will I create or remix? It’s only the first week! How about you? Have you considered questions? Connected? Begun conversations? Found a way to curate your discoveries to make meaning for yourself? How has your journey started?

Man, I’m not sure I can handle it, but I’m willing to try. Right now I’m reading student work (and getting distracted, as so often happens). I need to turn off Tweet Deck and keep working. I like the idea of tagging tweets with those. Is #midleved (mid level ed) still being used? Or the others?

Would the common conversations blog being in a new space? That’s the part I’m not sure I can handle, I guess.

Hi Denise,
Is #medleved the tag to use? I wasn’t sure. I think we could just add a blogroll of our connected blogs then, so we don’t have another to work with! You’re right about that! I just participated in the webinar with Alec Couros, the introduction again to connected learning. He left us with questions to think about — and I was reminded of your #geniushour which would lend itself to connected learning concepts. These are the questions I pulled out, and they fit with our need to think about assessment and our students’ futures:

How important is connected learning? Why?
Is it possible for our classrooms to support this kind of learning? If so, how?
What skills and literacies are necessary for connected learning? (and how to assess?)
How do we develop these?

It’s a starting place to invite others to answer the questions and begin to take small steps to change. What do you think? The questions support many aspects of our #medleved: blogging, inquiry–query other classes, collaborative projects, #geniushour. I’m anxious to here what you think.

It sounds great, Sheri. I hadn’t thought of #geniushour being an example of what we are trying to do. A wiki could be a good central place to connect our blogs and add resources, like we do for genius hour.

I had company last night, so I missed the webinar, but I’ll be sure to go back and listen. I will also take a crack at answering these questions.

Thanks, Denise. Yes, Great Idea! A wiki would be a terrific invitation, resource and planning area. Connected in the Middle for the name? Wikispaces or PBWorks? Excited to hear your responses and ideas.

“Connected in the Middle” sounds good, Sheri. I think it will lead to great collaboration and mutual learning among middle school teachers. I’m only familiar with Wikispaces. Which do you prefer? (I’m always open to learning new programs.)

Hi Denise — I know that wikispaces is free to educators, and although I am unfamiliar with it, I like your #geniushour wikispaces. PBWorks is free also, but the paid version has many advantages. Let’s look at these two examples and consider which would work for our purposes.

Hi Denise, I’m right with you as part as my trying to adapt my pedagogy to match what students need for their futures. How do I “how to assess true learning in my classroom?” Perhaps we could form a Diigo group to gather resources from which we could develop our own ideas and share with others in a blog. Remember the “common conversations” blog idea we talked about before. Perhaps there are enough middle school educators that would like to tackle this together. It works in with #geniushour and inquiry. What do you think? Perhaps if we tagged our Google+ and Tweets with #etmooc #midlevel or #midschool #assess ? I’m excited.

Welcome

Glad you stopped by to learn with me!

Read within these posts a technology journey in a middle school language arts media class as well as my own professional development through tech play.

Technology is a tool to expand one’s connections in the world, build learning communities, and empower others to do the same. It can be welcoming, inclusive, and collaborative as well as a vehicle for learning about the world together.